The site features a collection of war-themed postal cards
produced during World War 1 (1914 - 1919). Some 1,400 cards are displayed in an organized fashion. The cards are mementos of a world at
war during the second decade of the 20th century.
This web-site has been established to provide a tool to students,
researchers and postcard collectors with an interest in the period of
World War One in general or "Great War" propaganda in
particular.
These cards are historical artifacts which are not only often beautiful
examples of the lithographers art but are also of interest to students
of art, military and political history. The site is a creation of two
individuals who bring a combined total of 50 years experience as amateur
historians and active collectors. All of the cards pictured in the
site are authentic originals. The site is itself a "work in
progress" and it will be so for some time! A significant number of cards
are "rare" from a collector's viewpoint and we therefore hope
that this increases both the usefulness and interest. We thank you for
looking. Enjoy !!
Oh yes, because of the image density, some of the pages may take a bit
of time to load. Please be patient, you will not be disappointed
for having waited!

Postcards as
important historical artifacts.In reviewing this site it should be appreciated that these cards
were produced in the pre-electronic age. Postal cards were a universal
medium of communication at a time when the only avenues of mass
communication were printed newspapers, journals, books, posters and the
mail. It is therefore proper to consider "mail with a
message", which is what postal cards are, as a medium of mass
communication. Postal cards were immensely popular and the economic
mainstay of a vast and diverse printing industry throughout western
Europe. Postcards were inexpensive, inexpensive to send, ubiquitously
available and endlessly creative in the message their pictures conveyed.
Because they were a major means of communication, postcards were
produced to communicate the full range of human thought and intent. From
humor to nostalgia to joy to hate. It is precisely for this reason that
they are important cultural and historical artifacts. In times of war
there is a distillation of belief and motivation and emotion that is
clearly reflected in the cards displayed on this website. They are not
merely snapshots of a world at war. They are virtual windows into the
minds and hearts of millions who fought that war on the battlefields and
the home front as well.

It
is difficult to underestimate the impact that propaganda had upon the
masses in history’s first modern war, which saw the mobilization and
regimentation of entire societies to an unprecedented degree.WWI was a “total war” for its European participants, and that
totality was made possible in large measure due to the creation of an
equally modern propaganda as revealed in these cards.The
effectiveness of this propaganda in hardening the utter distinction
between “us” and “them” is seen in the aftermath of the war in
the harshness of terms dictated to Germany in the Treaty of Versailles.It was this harshness and heavy-handed vengeance towards the
German people that lead directly to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the
Nazi Party, and ultimately the Second World War.

The
great British historian G.M. Trevelyan, identifies wartime propaganda as
a crucial factor in the disastrous “insults and injuries” heaped
upon Germany at Versailles in 1919.Writing in 1937,
almost twenty years after Versailles and at a time when Hitler’s
Germany was in a frenzy of re-armament, Trevelyan assessed the impact
that the themes of Allied wartime portrayed here had upon the people of
Britain, and of France.“When the War began in 1914
the mood of the country was that of an idealist crusade to save Belgium
and liberty in Western Europe; great material advantages for ourselves
were not envisaged, nor any gross revenge on the enemy.But
the increasing atrocity of modern war . . . aroused the deepest
passions; and war propaganda, considered necessary to hold mass opinion
on the Home Front concentrated in hate of the enemy, made the utmost of
such themes.The popular press, in perpetual frenzy,
painted ’the Huns’ as scarcely human, and all who thought them human
as traitors. . . . as the terrible years went by, [it] hardened their
hearts and darkened their minds.The prolongation of
such a war for four years destroyed the possibility of a reasonable
peace, because the terms of peace would have to be decided before the
abnormal passion would have time to cool.”
[G.M. Trevelyan.British History in the Nineteenth Century and After.(1937 ed.)Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 459.]

The richness of study to be found in these cards will stimulate, delight
and amaze you.

Original Text :Jerry
Kosanovich and Paul HagemanAll cards
shown are from the
private collections of Paul Hageman and
Jerry Kosanovich.